Kelly Anorak

It’s finally Fall in Portland! When I left for a business trip to Texas last week it was still warm and sunny and when I got back it was cool and rainy! At least I can finally wear my Kelly Anorak! This is the latest pattern from Closet Case Files and I was a pattern tester. So my version may have a few differences from the final pattern.

This was my first time sewing a jacket and Heather made it easy! Definitely having made button down shirts before like a Grainline Archer will help. The hardest part was probably figuring out the plackets and the zippers. I was in hurry to get this done so I didn’t pay as much attention as I should have and ended up ripping things out a few times. Oopsie. Luckily this a nice sturdy fabric!

Speaking of which, I got this Organic Cotton Ripstop from Fabric.com. It was $8/yd and its’ 60″ so very economical for a project where you need a bit of fabric. It was lovely to work with too! I decided to go for some red accents so I used red snaps from Snap Source, which I got at Mill End Store. I also got a red zipper and cord, but red grommets are hard to find! So I bought silver grommets and painted them with nail polish. We’ll see how well they hold up!

I made one deviation from that pattern and that was to line my hood. I don’t mind the interior being unlined, but I wanted my hood seams to be covered. This was pretty easy to do using the hood pattern and the hood facing to draw a new hood lining piece.

The pattern instructions call for a bit of hand sewing but I am far too lazy for that. So I did a lot of stitch in the ditch sewing

The biggest issue I had with the pattern is that the placement of the drawstring is too high for me. If you are bigger busted, you may run into this too! Since I had put the grommet in before discovering this I had a big whole to cover up. I put some iron on interfacing from the back and then I sewed on a rectangle to cover the hole. I made it bigger so it looked more intentional. Hopefully no one guesses why that’s there!

I love the details on this jacket like the back vent and the felled seams. I did mine by serging and topstitching.